TCT fiber optic upgrade proceeding in Cowley

The TCT fiber optic communitywide upgrade project in Cowley took a while to get going but is now in full swing, CEO Richard Wardell said this week, with contractor Drover Construction of Alaska working steadily in town amid some challenging weather conditions.

“It took a little while to get all of the equipment on site and orienting the contractors with all of the underground obstacles that we are needing to work around for this project,” Wardell said Tuesday. “Work started on the south side of town and as of today the placement of conduit whether through plowing or directional drilling (boring) is approximately 25 percent complete with about 15 percent of the conduit for subscriber drops being placed.

“Employees of Drover Construction have been doing a great job of working around the existing underground facilities and taking great care to protect that infrastructure. As will always happen on projects like this, some unlocatable lines may be damaged, but Drover has been very responsive in getting those repaired.”

Wardell said Drover and TCT have had strong cooperation in Cowley.

“The town has gone out of their way to work with us in every way they can,” he said. “All of the utility locators have done a great job of helping to protect existing facilities. As the project continues through town, there will be clean-up items that will continue to take place to make sure things are put back as they should be.”

Cowley is the latest area community to receive a fiber optic upgrade from telecommunications provider TCT that will take top level service directly to the doorstep of homes. Work in Lovell will commence later this summer.

The upgrade involves replacing the current copper DSL (digital subscriber line) service with fiber optic line, which, though present in the communities, has generally not been run directly to homes until now.

All existing TCT customers in Cowley and Lovell will be converted for free, and the company has a map of each community that can be shared to ensure a customer is in the upgrade area.

Call 548-2112 with any questions.